PASSINGS: Roland Moritz, David A. Braun, Laurie Gottlieb

Roland Moritz

Longtime L.A. Philharmonic flutist

Roland Moritz, 86, who played flute for the Los Angeles Philharmonic for more than 40 years and for a time shared the concert stage with his father, Frederick Moritz, the Philharmonic’s longtime principal bassoonist, died Jan. 11 at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla after a heart attack and strokes, his family said.

The younger Moritz joined the Philharmonic in 1954, playing with noted conductors including Zubin Mehta, Carlo Maria Giulini, André Previn and Esa-Pekka Salonen. He also served as chairman of the Philharmonic’s orchestra committee, which represents the musicians in negotiations with management. Besides performing with the full orchestra, he was a member of the Philharmonic New Music Group and the Philharmonic Wind Quartet. He also played in other chamber groups and studio orchestras and taught flute before retiring in 1996.

Moritz was born in Los Angeles on July 24, 1926, three years after his parents and sister moved from Berlin so his father could join the newly formed L.A. Philharmonic. His father was principal bassoonist with the orchestra for 47 years, until his retirement in 1970.

Moritz grew up in Silver Lake and began playing flute as a teenager, while attending John Marshall High School. After earning a bachelor’s degree from UCLA in 1947, he studied flute at the Eastman School of Music and received a master’s. There he met his future wife, Laura Waterman, a vocal student.

The couple married in 1952 and moved to Coronado, where he served in the Navy during the Korean War. After his military service he joined the Philharmonic. They lived in Monterey Park and had two daughters before retiring in Coronado.

David A. Braun

Entertainment attorney for high-profile musicians

David A. Braun, 81, a longtime entertainment attorney whose high-profile clients included musicians Bob Dylan, George Harrison and Neil Diamond, died Monday at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara of heart failure after a long illness, said family spokeswoman Florence Grace.

Braun also had a stint as president of PolyGram Records in the early 1980s before returning to representing artists.

Born April 23, 1931, in New York City, where his father ran a candy store, Braun graduated from Columbia College and Columbia Law School. He began his career in New York as a lawyer in the television industry before recognizing a new opportunity in the late 1950s representing singers and songwriters in the emerging world of rock ‘n’ roll.

Known as a tough negotiator and an astute judge of talent, Braun led a move in the industry to demand higher royalty rates for artists. Braun handled Dylan’s legal affairs on the recommendation of the singer’s manager, Albert Grossman. Among the other acts he signed were Peter, Paul and Mary, and Gordon Lightfoot.

Braun moved his practice to California in 1974.

Laurie Gottlieb

Former writer for Times’ Home magazine

Laurie Gottlieb, 74, who wrote for Home magazine in the Sunday Los Angeles Times for more than a decade, died Jan. 23 of complications from a stroke at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, according to her son, Mike Gottlieb.

Between 1969 and 1981, Gottlieb reported regularly on interior design and home decor for the weekly lifestyle publication. She also wrote a popular weekly column for Home called “All Together,” which detailed the lifestyles of prominent and notable local families.

She once interviewed a family that ran one of the largest pig farms in California, in Sylmar. She spoke to a chimney sweep, a family of circus performers and the operator of a Goodyear blimp. Her subjects also included former Lakers player Tom Hawkins and comedian Tim Conway.

Gottlieb especially enjoyed writing the columns “because I firmly believe that the family unit is very much alive and well,” she told Home magazine in 1975.

She was born Laurie Geber in 1938 in Vienna. With her mother, she narrowly escaped German-occupied Austria and grew up in Los Angeles. She earned a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from UCLA.

In 1958, she married her high school sweetheart, Peter Gottlieb, and began writing for The Times when she was 31.

[For the record, 11:02 a.m. Feb. 2: An earlier version of this post misspelled Gottlieb’s maiden name, Geber, as Gerber.]

Times staff reports

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